Tradeify News Trading Rules: High-Impact Event Restrictions and Guidelines

Written by Paul

Published on

January 15, 2026

I've traded NFP (Non-Farm Payroll) releases on my Tradeify account eight times. CPI announcements? Twelve times. FOMC decisions? Five times. Every major news event I could think of, I've tested on Tradeify evaluations and funded accounts to see what actually happens.

Here's the surprising answer: nothing. Tradeify doesn't restrict news trading at all.

Most prop firms ban trading around NFP, FOMC, or at minimum put you in "read-only mode" 10 minutes before and after major releases. TopstepTrader locks you out during news. Apex sends warnings. MyFundedFutures has blackout windows.

Tradeify? They let you trade straight through every release and just tell you it's "at your own risk." That freedom comes with reality checks I learned the expensive way. This guide breaks down Tradeify's actual news trading policy, the hidden risks nobody mentions, what happens to your account during volatile events, and whether you should actually trade news even though you technically can.

Quick heads-up: This article is based on my real experience with Tradeify and the info available when I published/updated this. Things change in prop trading — rules, payouts, promos, all of it.

For the absolute latest, check Tradeify´s website or their help center.

Tradeify's Official News Trading Policy

Let's start with what Tradeify actually says. From their help center (which I checked January 2026): "We do not have any rules against or guidelines around trading news events. Free reign, but beware of volatility and how it can affect your account. You trade news AT YOUR OWN RISK."

That's it. No blackout windows. No restricted events. No "high-impact versus low-impact" classifications.

Compare this to other firms. TopstepTrader won't let you trade 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after major releases. Apex allows news trading but strongly discourages it. FTMO bans you during "red folder" events like NFP, CPI, and FOMC decisions. Tradeify is genuinely unusual here. Brett Simba, Tradeify's CEO, has said publicly they trust traders to manage their own risk around news events.

The phrase "at your own risk" isn't legal boilerplate. It's a technical warning about three specific problems that will absolutely happen if you trade news.

First, slippage risk. Your orders execute far from expected prices during news spikes. I've seen ES move 15 points in 8 seconds during NFP. If you're entering at market, you're getting filled wherever liquidity exists, which might be 5-10 points worse than the last quote you saw.

Example from my December 2025 NFP trade: I placed a market order to buy ES at 5845.00, based on the pre-release quote I was watching. News dropped and NFP beat by 50K jobs. My order filled at 5851.75—that's 6.75 points of slippage, costing me $337.50 worse than expected.

Second, spread widening. During major events, bid-ask spreads explode from normal 0.25 points to 2-5 points on ES. What looks like a 2-point stop loss can actually cost you 4-6 points when spreads widen at execution.

Third, platform lag and order rejection. The volume spike during news can overwhelm data feeds. I've had TradingView freeze for 3-4 seconds during FOMC announcements. Orders submitted during that lag execute at prices that no longer exist.

Tradeify's warning isn't about account violations. It's about the mechanical reality of trading illiquid, volatile markets.

Why Tradeify Allows News Trading Unlike Most Props

I asked about this in Tradeify's Discord and got an answer from their support team that makes sense.

Their philosophy centers on evaluating traders based on overall performance, not on whether you avoid specific events. If you can trade profitably through volatile conditions, that's a skill worth rewarding rather than restricting. The real filter comes from their consistency rule requiring no more than 20% (sim funded) or 35% (Growth/Select) of profits from a single day, combined with their drawdown mechanics that naturally filter out reckless news traders.

If you blow 40% of your capital on one NFP trade, you'll violate consistency requirements even if you're profitable overall. There's also a copy trading consideration. Once you reach Tradeify Elite Live status, they may copy your trades. Traders who can navigate news volatility successfully are valuable to copy. Those who can't wash out via drawdown violations before reaching Live.

This philosophy differs completely from firms that view news trading as "gambling" rather than skill.

What News Events Actually Do to Your Tradeify Account

Let me walk through real examples from my accounts.

NFP (Non-Farm Payroll) – December 6, 2025

My setup was simple. I had a Tradeify Growth $50K sim funded account with one ES contract long at 5845.00, entered at 8:28 AM ET. NFP releases at 8:30 AM ET sharp. My strategy was to hold through the release and exit on the initial move.

At 8:30:00 AM, NFP data hits showing 50K above forecast. Three seconds later at 8:30:03 AM, ES jumps from 5845 to 5862, a 17-point spike. Brief pullback to 5857 at 8:30:08 AM. I exited at 5858.25 forty-five seconds after release, capturing 13.25 points profit which equals $662.50.

The account impact was straightforward. No rule violations. Payout eligibility unaffected. Counted as one trading day. Contributed to consistency calculation but didn't exceed 35% of total profit, so no issues there.

The technical side tells a different story. My Tradovate feed lagged about 2 seconds during the spike. Prices on my DOM (Depth of Market) jumped from 5847 to 5859 with nothing in between displayed. This is normal during high-volume events. The platform isn't designed for microsecond precision during liquidity crunches.

FOMC Rate Decision – November 7, 2025

For this one, I was trading a Tradeify Select Flex $100K evaluation account. No position before the announcement. FOMC decision at 2:00 PM ET. My strategy was to trade the post-announcement volatility.

At 2:00 PM the rate decision announced no change, as expected. For the next five minutes from 2:00-2:05 PM, NQ whipsawed 80 points in both directions. At 2:06 PM, I entered short NQ at 15,750 on the first retest of resistance. Exited at 2:18 PM at 15,702, capturing 48 points which equals $960.

From Tradeify's perspective, no issues whatsoever. Counted toward profit target. No warnings or flags. But here's what surprised me: the spread on NQ during those first five minutes was 8-12 points instead of the normal 0.25. I tried to enter at 15,755 and got filled at 15,759, that's 4-point slippage. Later when I exited, my limit order at 15,702 filled immediately, suggesting the actual market was lower.

This is what Tradeify means by "at your own risk." Not that they'll penalize you, but that execution quality deteriorates.

CPI Inflation Data – October 10, 2025

This was my worst news trading experience. Tradeify Lightning $50K sim funded account. I had a position short 2 ES contracts at 5890.00, entered the day before. CPI releases at 8:30 AM ET. My plan was to hold overnight, assess at open, and manage through news.

At 8:29 AM, I had stop losses set at 5895.00 on both contracts. At 8:30:00 AM, CPI came in hotter than expected. Four seconds later at 8:30:04 AM, ES gapped up and both stops triggered. My fills came in at 5898.25 and 5899.00. That's 8.25 and 9-point slippage beyond my stop levels. Combined loss of $862.50, with $525 beyond my planned stop loss.

Tradeify treated it as a regular loss, processed normally. I was still above drawdown limit. No violations flagged. The lesson learned: stops don't protect you during news gaps. They become market orders when triggered, and market orders during news fill at whatever price exists. The $525 in extra slippage was the "at your own risk" tax.

How Tradeify's Rules Interact With News Trading

Even though news trading isn't banned, Tradeify's other rules still apply and create interesting dynamics.

The consistency rule limits single-day profits to 20% (sim funded) or 35% (Growth/Select) of total profits. Here's the news trading problem: if you make $4,000 on an NFP trade and your total account profit is $8,000, that one day represents 50% of your profits, violating the consistency requirement.

Your solution becomes either making additional profits on other days to dilute the percentage, keeping news trades proportionally smaller, or accepting that big news wins might delay payout eligibility. I failed this once on a Lightning account. Made $2,800 on FOMC, which was a great trade, but my total profit was only $6,100. That's 45.9% from one day. Had to trade 6 more days and add $1,200 in profit before I could request payout because the percentage finally dropped below 35%.

News volatility can breach your trailing drawdown faster than normal market conditions. Consider this scenario: $50K Growth account with starting balance of $53,200 and trailing drawdown at $50,100 (locked after first payout), giving you a $3,100 buffer.

During NFP, ES moves 20 points in 15 seconds. If you're on the wrong side with 2 contracts, that's a $2,000 loss instantly. Your buffer shrinks from $3,100 to $1,100 before you can react. On Tradeify Growth accounts with end-of-day drawdown, you have until 4:59 PM to recover. But the speed of news-driven losses makes recovery harder.

Growth accounts have a soft daily loss limit of $1,250 for $50K, $2,500 for $100K, and $3,750 for $150K. These are "soft" meaning you can exceed them intraday if you recover by end of day. The news trading risk becomes obvious: it's easy to blow through the daily loss limit in a single news trade if you're sized too large.

While you can theoretically recover by close, the pressure to "make it back" during volatile conditions often compounds losses. I hit my daily loss limit once on Growth $100K during a Fed announcement. Lost $2,800 on a bad NQ position. Spent the next 4 hours trying to recover, ended up losing another $400 before I stopped trading. The daily limit didn't fail my account, but it psychologically trapped me into revenge trading.

Tradeify's microscalping rule requires 50% of trades held longer than 10 seconds AND 50% of profits from trades held longer than 10 seconds. Some traders try to scalp 2-5 point moves during news volatility with sub-10-second holds. If this becomes your primary strategy, you'll violate the microscalping rule even if you're profitable.

Tradeify wants traders who can be copied onto live capital. Trades held less than 10 seconds are too fast for reliable copying.

Real Risks of News Trading on Tradeify Beyond the Rules

The absence of restrictions doesn't mean news trading is safe. Here are the practical problems.

Execution quality degrades massively during major releases. You're trading in the worst execution environment possible. Bid-ask spreads widen 10-20x normal. Order book depth disappears with 10-20 contracts per level instead of 500 plus. Liquidity providers pull quotes during uncertainty. Platform data feeds lag by seconds. Your edge diminishes when execution costs explode. A strategy that works in normal conditions fails when every entry and exit costs an extra 2-5 points.

You can't control timing. News releases happen at specific times: 8:30 AM ET, 10:00 AM ET, 2:00 PM ET. This creates predictable volatility spikes. The problem becomes clear. If you're profitable trading trending moves during normal hours (10:00 AM-3:00 PM), why trade during scheduled chaos? The risk/reward math changes when you know the market will whipsaw.

I stopped trading news after realizing my win rate during normal hours (68%) was significantly better than during news windows (52%). Same strategies, worse outcomes, purely due to execution environment.

Platform reliability varies significantly during high-volume events. I use Tradovate for my Tradeify accounts. Chart updates can lag 2-5 seconds. Order entry occasionally times out and resubmits, creating double orders. DOM freezes briefly during the initial spike. NinjaTrader 8 handles high-frequency data better in my experience, but still experiences delays.

This isn't Tradeify's fault. It's how retail trading platforms handle extreme order flow. But it makes news trading riskier than normal trading.

False signals increase dramatically around news. Pre-news positioning and post-news unwinding create price moves that don't reflect actual market direction. Here's a common pattern I've observed: ten minutes before NFP, buyers push ES up 5 points in anticipation. NFP drops and there's an initial spike 15 points higher. Two minutes later, reversal 20 points lower as early buyers take profits. Five minutes later, second wave up 10 points on actual interpretation.

Which move is "real"? All of them and none of them. News trading requires you to distinguish signal from noise during maximum noise. I'm better at reading price action during regular hours when institutional flow is steadier. News trading requires different skills I haven't mastered.

Prop Firm	News Trading Policy	Major Events Affected
Tradeify	Fully allowed, at your own risk	None restricted (NFP, FOMC, CPI, all allowed)
TopstepTrader	Banned 2 min before/after major events	NFP, FOMC, CPI, GDP, retail sales
Apex Trader Funding	Allowed but strongly discouraged	No specific bans, warnings issued
TopOneFutures	Allowed with increased monitoring	None banned, risk management emphasized
FTMO	Banned during "red folder" events	NFP, central bank decisions, major data
MyFundedFutures	Blackout windows during tier-1 events	NFP, FOMC, unemployment data

Tradeify sits in the minority of firms allowing unrestricted news trading. TopOneFutures has a similar policy. Most others restrict at least NFP and FOMC. The question isn't which policy is "better." It's which matches your trading style. If news volatility is core to your edge, Tradeify and TopOneFutures are better choices than TopstepTrader or FTMO.

Practical Guidelines for News Trading on Tradeify

If you're going to trade news on Tradeify despite the risks, here's what actually helps.

Whatever your normal position size is, halve it for news trades. If you typically trade 2 ES contracts, trade 1 during news. The volatility will give you the same dollar movement, but with half the risk if it goes against you.

Avoid market orders during news windows at all costs. Use limit orders only. You won't always get filled, but when you do, you control the price. Bad example: market order to buy NQ as FOMC decision drops, filled 40 points higher than expected. Better example: limit order to buy NQ at 15,750, filled exactly at 15,750 or not filled at all. Not getting filled is fine. Getting filled 40 points worse kills your edge.

Wait for initial volatility to settle before entering. The first 90 seconds after major news are pure chaos. By minute 3-5, some normalcy returns. My approach now goes like this: at 8:30:00 AM NFP drops, from 8:30:00-8:32:00 AM I watch but don't trade, at 8:32:00 AM I assess the direction and first pullback, at 8:33:00 AM I consider entry on the second wave. I'm not trying to catch the initial spike. I'm trading the follow-through after professionals have absorbed the data.

If you're holding positions through news, which I don't recommend, set your stops before the announcement. Don't trust yourself to exit manually during the spike. You'll hesitate, hope for recovery, and hold longer than planned. Pre-set stops execute without emotion.

Check the economic calendar every morning. Use Investing.com economic calendar, ForexFactory calendar, or CME Group event calendar. Mark "high impact" events in red on your trading schedule. Decide by 8:00 AM whether you'll trade around them. I keep a printed calendar on my desk during evaluation accounts. Once funded, I'm more flexible, but during evals I avoid all red-flag events.

Create a separate P&L log for news trades versus regular trades. My results after 6 months: regular trading earned +$18,400 total with 68% win rate, news trading earned +$2,100 total with 52% win rate. Conclusion: I make 7x more trading normal hours. The data told me to stop news trading even though it's allowed. Your results might differ, but you won't know without tracking.

Alternative Strategies That Avoid News Trading

If you want to trade on Tradeify without touching news events, try these approaches.

Simple rule: if NFP is at 8:30 AM, close everything by 8:20 AM. Re-enter after 8:35 AM once volatility settles. This works well with Tradeify's trading hours since you have flexibility throughout the session.

Focus on low-volatility windows during the day. Trade from 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET (post-open, pre-lunch) and 1:00 PM-3:00 PM ET (mid-afternoon). Avoid 8:30-10:00 AM ET which is the economic data window. These windows have institutional flow without scheduled news volatility.

Use overnight positions within Tradeify's rules. Tradeify requires all positions closed by 4:59 PM ET, but you can hold from 6:00 PM to 4:59 PM the next day, which is nearly 23 hours. Enter positions after market close (6:00 PM or later), avoiding US economic data entirely. Trade Asia and Europe session moves instead. I've done this occasionally. Spreads are wider overnight, but you completely avoid US news events.

Even if you're not trading news, you need to know when it's happening. Sunday night, review the week's calendar and mark high-impact events: NFP (first Friday of month), CPI/PPI (mid-month), FOMC (8 times per year), GDP releases (quarterly), and retail sales (mid-month). Each morning, check for same-day releases. If something major drops at 8:30 AM or 10:00 AM, adjust your trading plan accordingly.

FAQ

Does Tradeify ban news trading during major events like NFP or FOMC?

No, Tradeify does not restrict news trading during any events. You can trade through NFP, FOMC, CPI, GDP, or any other high-impact announcement without account penalties. They warn that you trade "at your own risk" due to increased volatility and execution issues, but no blackout windows or trading restrictions exist.

Will trading news affect my consistency rule requirements on Tradeify?

Yes, if a single news trade generates a large portion of your total profits, you may violate Tradeify's consistency rule (20% for sim funded, 35% for Growth/Select). For example, making $3,000 on NFP when your total profit is $7,000 means that one day represents 42.8% of profits, exceeding the 35% limit. You'll need additional profitable days to dilute the percentage before requesting payouts.

What execution problems happen during news trading on Tradeify?

During major releases, you'll experience wider bid-ask spreads (10-20x normal), significant slippage on market orders (5-10 points on ES), platform data feed delays (2-5 seconds), and thinner order book liquidity. These technical issues aren't unique to Tradeify. They affect all retail trading platforms during extreme volatility. Limit orders provide better control than market orders during news.

Can I trade news during my Tradeify evaluation without risking failure?

Technically yes, but it's risky. One bad news trade can breach your drawdown or daily loss limit, failing your evaluation. Since evaluations cost $100-$500 depending on account size, most traders avoid news until they're funded. I passed six evaluations without trading news. The risk isn't worth the potential reward during the evaluation phase.

How does Tradeify's news trading policy compare to TopstepTrader or Apex?

Tradeify allows unrestricted news trading while TopstepTrader bans trading 2 minutes before and after major events like NFP and FOMC. Apex allows news trading but strongly discourages it. Tradeify takes a more permissive approach, trusting traders to manage their own risk rather than enforcing blackout windows.

Will Tradeify compensate me for bad fills during news volatility?

No, Tradeify won't reverse trades or compensate for slippage during news events. Their "at your own risk" warning means you accept execution quality as-is. If you place a market order during NFP and get filled 8 points worse than expected, that execution stands. Use limit orders to control entry prices during volatile periods.

Should I trade news on Tradeify just because I can?

Just because Tradeify allows news trading doesn't mean you should do it. Most traders perform worse during news volatility due to wider spreads, execution delays, and unpredictable price action. Track your performance separately for news trades versus regular trading to determine if news events actually improve your profitability or just add unnecessary risk.

What's the best way to avoid news trading on Tradeify?

Close all positions 10 minutes before major releases (NFP at 8:30 AM, FOMC at 2:00 PM) and wait 5 minutes after for volatility to settle. Check economic calendars each Sunday to mark high-impact events for the week. Focus trading on low-volatility windows like 10:00 AM-12:00 PM and 1:00-3:00 PM ET when institutional flow is steadier.

Does the microscalping rule affect news trading strategies?

Yes, if you scalp 2-5 point moves during news with sub-10-second holds as your primary strategy, you'll violate Tradeify's microscalping rule requiring 50% of trades and 50% of profits from positions held longer than 10 seconds. News scalping conflicts with Tradeify's goal of finding traders whose strategies can be copied to live capital.

Can I hold positions through news events overnight within Tradeify's time rules?

You can enter positions after 6:00 PM ET and hold through Asian/European sessions to avoid US economic data entirely, but you must close by 4:59 PM ET the next day. This strategy lets you trade overnight moves while completely avoiding scheduled US news volatility. Spreads are wider during overnight hours but you eliminate news execution risk.